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Photo by Eric Mayfield
THE INTERNATIONAL POP OVERTHROW
STANTON PARK
SUNDAY, JULY 28
'Twas quite a weekend for small, little-publicized music fests--the kind you can't pay for at TicketBastard--what with the Cool Radio 94.3/Live Magazine-sponso...

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Photo by Matt OttoIt seems that rock & roll is being "reinvented" on an hourly basis these days by every musician with access to a thrift-store guitar or subtalented sibling or spouse--or at least that's what we're being force-fed by the almighty ro...

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There's something important that people need to learn: rock en espaol and Latin alternative music, though related, are two radically dissimilar categories. But wouldn't-know-better promoters frequently ignore this distinction and continue to create...

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Photo by Gustave ArellanoIf the police could arrest Cuauhtmoc just for being a band, they probably would.
Their music is an activist's dream: bombastic drumbeats, Rage-esque guitar anarchy, and explosive vocal trade-offs between the smooth voice ...

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By day, 26-year-old Steven Andrade is a mild-mannered, suit-and-tie-wearing Philadelphia hotel worker. But at night, out come the wigs, the makeup, the heels and all the fierce glammy-glam glamour of his drag alter ego, Ginger Snaps. Ginger's most f...

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If there's one thing I bloody dog-fucking hate, it's pretty-boy-cracker-ass guitarists who look more like they should be appearing on Oz in lipstick and pigtails as Vern Schillinger's latest smegma receptacle than gigging at high-profile festivals a...

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Photo by Jack Gould JOHN WILKES KISSING BOOTH
A THREAT IN THE BROADCAST
VELVET BLUE MUSIC
Deprived of the support of a full PR team, born without fantastically wealthy fathers, and cursed with sadly un-afro-able and thus unmarketable hair, it ap...

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VARIOUS ARTISTS
HOW WE ROCK
BURNING HEART/EPITAPH
There's a reason words like explosive and bombastic are used to describe good rock & roll. When it's done right, that's exactly how it sounds: the musical equivalent of the bombing of Dresden, th...

on August 1, 2002

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OZMA
THE DOUBBLE DONKEY DISC
(KUNG FU)
Ozma is more Weezer than any of those dime-a-dozen pretenders to the throne that Weezer sits upon; in fact, these days, Ozma is even more Weezer than the pop-rock crown-bearers themselves. They bring back m...

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Illustration by Kathryn HyattThe Pacific Northwest during the early-to-mid-'60s hosted some of the most ferocious and timeless rock & roll ever produced, although the scene is all but forgotten today. But from Portland through Tacoma and Seattle, in...

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Photo by Matt OttoSo you know those scary guys you sometimes see down at the beach, the ones with scuffed-to-shit surfboards and tattoos poking out the sleeves of their wetsuits? They're probably in a band on Hostage Records.
And you know those gu...

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Photo by James BunoanIt's so weird, really, this bright, shiny, impossibly hooky tune bobbing in an ocean of lesser songs currently rotating on KMXN-FM 94.3, tucked in amongst all the Green Day and the Hives and the New Found Glory and the Unwritten...

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Photo by James Bunoan CHEAP TRICK
VERIZON WIRELESS AMPHITHEATER, IRVINE
SATURDAY, JULY 13
We hadn't been to an arena rock show since we saw Jackyl chain saw the genre's already-flaccid dignity to pieces back when we were about 12, but you can't ...

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Photo by Alyssa ScheinsonBen Kweller just turned 21, and he still believes that somebody will someday write a story about him that doesn't begin by mentioning his age.
"I really feel like it's slowly dying down, the whole age thing," Kweller says ...

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When Spanish radio station KSSE 97.5 (better known as "Super Estrella") began its Reventn music festival five years ago, Southland rockeros thanked the gods.
But today, these rockeros are atheists.
See, the Reventn was supposed to help the the...

on July 25, 2002

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Photo by Stephanie HernstadtIf my survival mechanism worked half decently, I'd run like hell from people like Missy Gibson and Mike Flanagan. Any sane person would. Their music is truly dangerous--and not in the contrived way that local news shows b...

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You can write a song that sounds like a lot of things, but it's hard to write a song that sounds only like you--something generated somewhere inside, not just an echo of the best old records in your collection. Too many people get tangled in all the...

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Jackie DeShannon has enough feathers in her cap to make a duck: her 1964 song "When You Walk in the Room" ushered in the '60s folk-rock sound; she was the Beatles' hand-picked opener on their first U.S. tour; she had memorable hits with her "Put a L...

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Photo by Matt Otto THE FLATLANDERS/ASHLEY BEE
THE COACH HOUSE
WEDNESDAY, JULY 3
Last year's Flatlanders show at the Anaheim House of Blues was only one-quarter full. Last week's show at the Coach House? Hordes. Perhaps it was the recent Larry Ki...